Winter
by raeubertochter
Summary: Kakashi had learned how to deal with a lot of things - but he had never learned how to live happily ever after.  Post 4th war / a presumed happy-ending of Shippuuden.


_This is for The You of Yesterday. I hope you enjoy this!_

_Also, I might add, I do not advertise the way of dealing with problems described in this story!  
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><p><strong>Winter<strong>

The frost painted delicate patterns on the window. Crystalline flowers that slowly obscured more and more of a heavily clouded sky.  
>Kakashi lay in his bed and watched them grow. This, he thought, was no weather to go out and train. He found some comfort in this idea. It made him feel less guilty for still lying in bed.<p>

He briefly wondered whether it was a morning's or an evenings twilight or nothing but the grey clouds of winter outside, but soon decided that it did not make much of a difference anyway.

Three weeks ago Kakashi had had a thought. A thought which had managed to disturb him far more than any thought had in a long while (if ever).

Peace, he had thought, was terribly boring.

Kakashi had always assumed that, should the day come and peace rule their world, life would continue as it always had. Only more peaceful.

The truth was, it as very different. He had not had a decent (that is to say excitingly dangerous) mission since the day Madara had been defeated, and while he would meet with his team to train – it all felt kind of purposeless. There were no great dangers to face that would make their training worthwhile. While there was still a whole world to fight for, there just wasn't much left to fight against.

Kakashi had tried his best to forget about this idea, but every now and then it would leak back from his unconscious mind and leave a shallow taste in his mouth and a numb and empty feeling in his stomach. With the number of lives sacrificed to get where they were now – how could he dare to be discontent with this, his new life; their new world.

Even – and maybe this was the most alarming change of all – his beloved Icha Icha books had lost their appeal.

A knock on his door tore Kakashi's eye away from the frost on his window. He rolled to his side, then – after listening to the constant rapping for a while – to his stomach. He buried his face deep in his pillow and pulled his blanket up over his head.

"Kaka-sensei!", he heard Naruto outside.

"I know you're in there, so please open the door!"

This would take a while, Kakashi though. Naruto wasn't likely to give up as quickly as Sakura had the day before. Maybe he would even stay longer in front of that door than Gai had, the day before that. Kakashi would simply have to endure it.

He knew, deep down, that quite possibly Naruto was the only person able to talk some sense into him again. Yet the sheer idea of his former student and newly appointed Hokage's cheerful demeanour made Kakashi feel nauseous.

When Kakashi crawled out of his cocoon, it had grown dark. Maybe, Kakashi wondered, he had fallen asleep while waiting for Naruto to go away. Or maybe it just had grown dark. This was bound to happen at least once a day.

The banging on his door, Kakashi noted, had not stopped. However, it had changed, sounded more authoritarian, more insisting even. (How anyone could manage to be more insisting than Naruto was beyond Kakashi's imagination.)

"Hatake Kakashi!", a female voice mixed itself under the banging.

"If you don't open this door _right now_, I swear – I'm going to break it down."

Kakashi found the effect this voice had on him quite startling. Not only because within seconds he obediently scrambled out of his bed and to his feet , but also because of the side-effects of this sudden rise.

Hadn't it been dark, Kakashi probably would have noted his vision getting clouded, but as it was he only noticed a sudden rush of cold and not too much after that.

When he opened his eyes again, he was back in his bed, and staring straight at a pair of enormously large breasts. Possibly not the worst thing one could wake up to, but still confusing.

"The door was sealed", he mumbled and the breasts moved with their owner's sigh.

"Well", she said "You don't get to be Hokage if you don't have a few tricks up you're sleeve, do you?"

Whether it was her words or the fact that only now Kakashi felt his consciousness fully return; it suddenly occurred to him that boring his eye into Tsunade-sama's cleavage was not at all, and never would be, an appropriate thing to do.

He awkwardly brought himself into a sitting position and focused on her eyes instead.

"You gave me quite a fright", Tsunade said, with a look of concern.

"The way you lay there – you looked just like", but she cut herself off, before she could end her thought. She smiled and then did something that caught Kakashi entirely off-guard. (Not that his guard was especially high at the moment.)

Tsunade placed her arm around his shoulders and pulled him a little closer to her. Her hand pressed against his back, between his shoulder-blades, and he was sure that she was using some carefully moulded chakra to force his muscles to relax. (Funny, he thought, how something as paradoxical as "force someone to relax", actually worked.)

Eventually, and somewhat against his own will, Kakashi's head sank against her shoulder and his eyes fell shut.

He felt like he was eight years old again. Not sitting in his own apartment, in his own bed, but in a hospital-room.

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><p><em>A blanket is wrapped around his shoulders. It's supposed to keep him warm, but it doesn't prevent his hands and his feet from freezing. His face feels cold too, and numb, and his eyes sting even though he is pretty sure that he didn't cry. He stares at his fingers, which still emit the faint smell of blood.<em>

_When the door slides open, Kakashi raises his head.  
><em>

"_You were able to save him, right?", he blurts out before Tsunade has closed the door behind her._

_Tsunade says nothing and thus Kakashi rambles on. _

_The part of him, which detached itself hours ago, listens. The part of him, which now stands a few feet away and watches that eight year old boy he's supposed to be._

_The boy rambles on, how the wound can't be that sever, and how blood always seems to be more, once it has left a body. He says how unbelievably stupid it is to fall on your weapon like that, how incredibly unlikely, and that therefore, of course, the wound sustained can't be fatal.  
><em>

_The boy is so absorbed in his words, that he doesn't notice at all how Tsunade sits down next to him. Her hand ruffles through his hair, then rests on his shoulder, before it pulls him closer to her. She places her other hand between his shoulder-blades, and gradually the boy relaxes, stops talking and sinks against her enormously large breasts._

"_I'm sorry", Tsunade whispers, and the boy understands, even though he'd rather not._

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><p>It took some time, until Kakashi managed to free himself from Tsunade's embrace.<p>

"I'm fine", he told her, trying his best to preserve the last bit of pride he had left.

"Of course you are", Tsunade answered as if she meant it.

"Doesn't change the fact that everyone's worried about you."

Kakashi made a face. It was then that he realised he wasn't wearing his mask. Suddenly he felt very naked and very vulnerable. As inconspicuously as possible he tried to cover his face with his hands.

Tsunade politely pretended not to notice.

"Why are you here?", he asked through his fingers. He hadn't shaved in days, he noted; He couldn't remember when he last had looked at himself in the mirror.

"To see how you're doing."

It occurred to him, that there really was no excuse at all for the state he was in.

"We've all been there", Tsunade told him with the hint of a smile.

"Where?"

She pointed at the cardboard-box under Kakashi's desk, which held four colourful paperbacks.

"Kicking a habit."

For the first time in days Kakashi felt inclined to smile. He didn't, though. Instead he climbed out of his bed and fished some fresh clothes from his wardrobe.

He told Tsunade that he'd be alright, and that she could go now. He would have liked to tell her that he would very much appreciate it if she'd be so kind and replace his door, which now hung loose in its hinges, but he didn't.

When Kakashi returned from the bathroom – showered, shaven and masked – Tsuande was still there.

Normally, Kakashi thought, it would irritated him if someone had taken the liberty to change his sheets and set up his table (which meant that she must of have dug through his closet), but a this very moment, he felt that he just couldn't be bothered.

"You're still here", he simply noted and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"Yes I am", she said, while placing a variety of takeaway food on the table. She then produced two bottles from beside her.

Two bottles bare any label but with clear content.

"I figured, you might need some company", she told Kakashi.

Kakashi thought that she was wrong, that he didn't want any company, that he definitely didn't need any company, but before he had thought of the right words to tell her so, he already sat down opposite from Tsunade, and stared at the dishes laid out in front of him.

He was hungry. That he couldn't deny. He was also quite confused by the way Tsunade didn't act like Tsunade at all. He knew, from experience, that she did have a more caring (more motherly) side, but he had always assumed that she had drowned it along with her sorrow seventeen years ago.

Tsunda poured some of the clear liquid into two glasses, and pushed one in Kakashi's direction. He mumbled something about not drinking, but Tsunade ignored him.

"To absent friends", she said and raised her glass. Before he knew it, Kakashi had followed her example.

He sipped the clear liquid through his mask; tried his best not to make a face and ignored the tingling sensation on his lips, where the fabric of his mask was now soaked with alcohol.

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><p>One bottle of something ,which, as far as Kakashi could tell, should be used for medical purpose only (which it was – Tsunade assured him), he started to talk. He had kept fairly silent until then, but now it only took one word from Tsunade ("Peace"), to get him started.<p>

He told her how he hadn't had one decent mission in a year, and how no one else seemed to mind. How he loathed the way everyone seemed to be able to make good use of their newly acquired free-time. He told her that he understood and knew and believed that peace was a good thing, but that it scared him witless, that he had no idea what to do with his life, or with the prospect of dying old and degenerated at home and not any not too far away day somewhere in some battle.

Another half-bottle later, Kakashi was kneeling on the bathroom floor, wondering where in the world all the contents his body wanted to get rid off came from. He had no idea when he had taken off his mask, but he was grateful that he had.

He also was faintly amused by the fact, that he still had enough pride left to feel glad that Tsunade had taken her cue and left. He noticed that she hadn't, when – he had just calmed down enough to catch his breath – something smooth and cold touched his hand, and she handed him a glass of water.

"Do you need help, getting in bed?", she asked.

Kakashi couldn't tell if there was any sign of amusement in her voice. If there was he decided to ignore it.

He shook his head and with his free hand – the one that wasn't clutching the glass of water as if it was a lifeline – pointed at the tile-floor.

"I think, I'd rather stay here", he mumbled. He was a little surprised when Tsunade didn't do anything but shrug. She left, and shortly returned with a blanket that she wrapped around him.

"Believe me", she said, while she sat down next to him, "I wouldn't have suggested this, had I known that you've got the tolerance of a genin."

For a second Kakashi thought, that maybe the information that he didn't drink could have been a clue. Or the fact that he had spent the past week lying in bed and staring at his wall. But then he decided it would be too much of a bother to explain these matters to Tsunade.

Instead he emptied his glass of water and then lay down, his head resting in Tsunade's lap.

"You know", he said after a while "I never thought I'd get to smell you from this close."

"And under any other circumstances I'd break your nose beyond repair for saying this", Tsunade replied.

Kakashi didn't say anything else after that.

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><p>When Kakashi woke up, he was on his own. He was also back in his bed, but it took him some time to realise this. He couldn't tell whether it were the head-aches, or the waves of nausea that washed over him – with no detectable pattern, which might have made them easier to endure – or the thirst, which was worst and for a brief moment Kakashi felt absolutely certain, that he was going to die here and now. (Which, he noted, would be kind of ironic.)<p>

Then he rationalised that he probably wasn't going to die. He rolled to his side, and found the bottle of water Tsunade had placed on his nightstand.

After emptying half of it, he thought – for a second – that he was actually feeling better, but then his bed started to sway again, and Kakashi crawled back under his blanket, where he curled up and wished for this to pass as quickly as possible.

Tsunade was bound to have some kind of miracle-cure for hangovers, he thought, and felt slightly betrayed, because she had obviously denied him this remedy.

Maybe he'd kill her. Some other day.

With these thoughts Kakashi drifted back to sleep. When he woke up again, he still felt miserably miserable. Yet, apart from this, he felt surprisingly alive. As soon as this was over, he decided, he needed to get out of here; out of his flat, out of the village. Maybe, with as little going on as it was, he would take some days, weeks, maybe even months off to go on a journey.

He had never left the village without some kind of mission as the reason. Maybe it was time to change that.


End file.
